Revision as of 11:26, April 22, 2005

The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is an autocephalous church with parishes mainly in the United States and Canada (though it has some parishes in Australia and elsewhere). The OCA was formerly known as the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America, or more informally, the Metropolia.

The current primate of the OCA is His Beatitude Herman (Swaiko), Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada.

Contents

History

The OCA began with the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution brought communication between the churches in North America and Russia to an almost complete halt. In the early 1920s, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow directed all Russian Orthodox churches outside of Russia to govern themselves autonomously until regular communication and travel could be resumed. (He died in 1925, and was glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989.) At that time, parishes which had been part of a single North American diocese organized separate dioceses and placed themselves under various other mother churches, giving rise to the current situation of multiple overlapping jurisdictions in North America.

The OCA Today

In the United States, there are 12 dioceses and 623 parishes, missions, and institutions (456 of which are parishes). The ethnic dioceses extend into Canada, which also has one non-ethnic archdiocese. Altogether there are 91 Canadian parishes. The OCA has a Mexican Exarchate with nine parishes and missions, and there are five parishes in South America. In addition, there are three parishes in Australia under the OCA’s canonical protection, two in Sydney and another near Brisbane.

There are three ethnic dioceses in the OCA: the Albanian (13 parishes), Bulgarian (16 parishes) and Romanian (59 parishes). These dioceses' geographic territory overlaps with the other dioceses of the OCA and they have under their care parishes with those ethnic associations. These dioceses are the result of smaller ethnic jurisdictions joining the OCA at some point in its history.

Growth and membership figures

Altogether, estimates of OCA faithful number from about 28,000[1] to 115,000[2] to 1 million[3] to 2 million[4], depending on the report cited and method used for counting. The number of new parishes founded from 1990 to 2000 increased the overall parish number by about 12%, and new membership has been fairly equally divided between new immigrants, children of existing members, and converts to the faith. Overall, according to one report the trend during that decade held the population of OCA faithful in neither increase nor decline, but remaining steady.[5] According to another, however, that same decade saw a 13% decline.[6]

One of the ongoing difficulties that the OCA faces today is a financial and structural one—the institutions, episcopacy and structures of the OCA largely reflect probably very inflated population estimates based on obsolete figures. Additionally, the annual dues per church member is much higher than other Orthodox jurisdictions in America[7][8], which can often make realistic estimates difficult, as parishes may not wish to report their full membership in order to avoid the high dues. There is also a perceived "precipitous decline" in OCA reported membership [9], and while some interpret this as simply an ongoing transition in terms of the difference between reported figures and actual figures[10], the church's primate has referred to the situation as a "membership crisis."[11] A general shortage in clergy is also being cited in some reports.[12]

According to Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff, who is on the administrative committee of the OCA's Department of Evangelization and the board of directors of the Orthodox Christian Mission Center, the OCA's American contintental membership (i.e., not including Alaska, Canada, or the ethnic dioceses) "has been declining between 6 and 9% for nearly 20 years. The OCA’s Census population in 1994 was 29,775; in 2004 it stood at 27,169."[13] Despite these sobering figures, however, the OCA's dioceses of the West and South have both reported steady growth.

Name

According to Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) of San Francisco, the name of this jurisdiction is The Orthodox Church in America, and its acronym should be TOCA.[14] There has not yet been any official announcement from the central administration of the church, however, and the former uses (Orthodox Church in America and OCA) remain the most common both within and outside the jurisdiction.

According to the 1970 Tomos of Autocephaly granted by the Church of Russia, the official name of this church body is The Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America.[15]

Episcopacy

Diocesan bishops

Most Blessed Herman (Swaiko), Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada, Locum Tenens of the Diocese of New England and the Diocese of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania, administrator of the Diocese of New York and New Jersey

Most Reverend Kyrill (Yonchev), Archbishop of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania and the Bulgarian Diocese